Thursday, April 05, 2007

Coddingtown Mall

Santa Rosa, California - circa 1960s

Great aerial view of one of Sonoma County's classic shopping destinations, Coddingtown Mall (now partly owned by Simon Property Group, Inc.). The mall is currently anchored by JCPenney, Macy's, and Gottschalk's, and is still a beautiful place to shop even today, according to our resident Northern California malls expert, BIGMallrat, who noted:

"Coddingtown Mall has the most beautiful ceiling I've ever seen in an enclosed shopping center. It reflects the redwood surroundings of Santa Rosa.

The mall is light and bright and really pleasant. The interior corridors are wide and easy to stroll. You can tell this was an open air center at one time because the floor is noticeable higher in some areas."

6 Comments:

That's an awesome aerial before the enclosure! I really need to update my write-up of this mall! The reason why I went that way evaporated. Now I need to make a special trip (ugh, traffic is awful that way). I bet I know a certain someone who would LOVE the rotating Codding Town sign!! (yes, it does make a slight creaking noise when it rotates!)Scott

I was up in Santa Rosa a month or two ago and stopped by Coddingtown to have a look. The mall itself is looking a little tired, a few vacancies and such. Gottschalk's (originally Liberty House, then Macy's) looks great, but the star is Macy's (originally The Emporium). The street floor was remodeled in the 80's but the second floor looks almost exactly as it did when the store opened in 1966! It's really a trip back in time.

Back in the 80's, I worked at the San Francisco Liberty House with a woman who worked for the Emporium Santa Rosa back when it opened in '66. She said people came from far and wide just to ride the escalator. They'd never seen one before!

Love this old pic of Coddingtown. I remember it from before it was enclosed. Also, thank you hushpuppy because I was trying to remember the name Liberty House. I still remember the black pumps I bought there one time.

Wow, taht's great. I mean, now is a common practice but I imagine that in those times it was a novelty. I have seen some of these pictures, my brother sent me some of these thorugh whatsapp. I don't have it on the phone, but if you don't have whats up download it from the internet is easy.

I've been there just ahout two weeks ago. It looks nice but it feels kind of empty (a bunch of vacant stores). I've gone to its Target and Whole Foods stores.

I wonder how do people access that unused second floor because it would be awesome if it started to be used (which will pretty much only happen once that new Nordstrom Rack store comes in fall of 2016)